Stouffer’s Roast Turkey Review

Sometimes, the craving for a traditional turkey dinner is just too much to bear. If that’s the case, you have several options. For one, you could carry out a complex, multi-stage plan to convince your family members that it’s Thanksgiving when it’s actually not. Of course, it’s probably a heck of a lot easier to just pick up Stouffer’s Roast Turkey.

This frozen meal contains all the usual Thanksgiving suspects: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. Plus, it weighs in at a measly 280 calories. So of course we needed to give this one a shot and let our lovely Freezer Meal Frenzy readers know how we think it stacks up against Mom’s traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

So here we go!

First off, we should mention that we often find ourselves commenting on Stouffer’s unusually long cook times. That’s not the case here. Stick this meal into the microwave for two and a half minutes, give it a quick stir, then pop it in for two and a half minutes longer. That’s a total of five minutes, which certainly isn’t bad when you compare it to some of Stouffer’s other meals, such as the Tuna Noodle Casserole (with a seven-minute cook time) or the Escalloped Chicken & Noodles (with a seven-and-a-half-minute cook time).

Now that the whole cooking thing is out of the way, we should point out that the dish is separated into two compartments — one contains the mashed potatoes, while the other contains everything else. So the image on the front of the box is a bit misleading, as it shows each component as its own item rather than the turkey, gravy, and stuffing to be its own little stew.

And this means there’s actually quite a bit less turkey than we expected. Instead of those thick, juicy slabs shown on the cover, you’ll get little pieces that are mixed into the gravy and stuffing. Now, this isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world, since the turkey is kind of dry on its own and really needs that gravy so it can soak up some moisture. But we really were hoping for something more like that delicious-looking image. A giant chunk of turkey can be a wonderful thing to eat, and you won’t find it here.

The stuffing is so-so. Some of the stuffing chunks are enormous, even larger than the turkey chunks, and they’re a bit too chewy. They taste decent, though, and they soak up most of the gravy, so you’ll have nice, gravy-doused stuffing to nibble on in between bites of turkey. Or, you can get some turkey, stuffing, and gravy all onto the same forkful and eat it as one stew-like blend rather than separate components. We actually think this is the preferable way to enjoy this meal.

The mashed potato portion isn’t bad. It’s a little mushy and a bit gravelly, but it tastes halfway decent. We think this is roughly the same mashed potato mix Stouffer’s uses in their Classic Baked Chicken, though here it doesn’t seep into the gravy and get all watery, so that’s a plus.

As we mentioned earlier, this entire meal contains 280 calories (90 from fat), which is much, much less than you’d expect from a meal of this sort. The sodium is a tad high, at 770 mg, but that’s only slightly above average for a frozen meal.

The Stouffer’s Roast Turkey is a Thanksgiving dinner for one. While it’s certainly nowhere near the level of quality you’d expect from a home-baked celebratory feast, it gets the job done when the craving strikes. Plus, the low calorie count makes this appealing for those who want a holiday-style meal without the holiday-style weight gain.

To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in this Stouffer’s turkey dinner, check out our package scans below.